Widely considered one of the finest novels ever written, this timeless tale follows a young woman who, after being orphaned at a young age, is sent to a brutal boarding school. 10 years later, she accepts a job as a governess for a young girl, the ward of the enigmatic and brutish master of Thornfield Hall.Slowly but surely, she begins to fall for her erratic employer whilst she also starts uncovering his dark secrets.Directed by Robert Stevenson, best known for helming Disney’s beloved film Mary Poppins, this underrated Gothic romance from the classic Hollywood era stars Joan Fontaine as Jane and Orson Welles as Mr Rochester.Many film fans have claimed over the years that it’s one of the best adaptations of Brontë’s novel to ever be produced. It’s certainly a must-watch for viewers who have devoured recent period romances such as Wuthering Heights and The Other Bennet Sister or can’t wait for the upcoming iterations of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice.One 10/10 review from an IMDb user claimed that, while other versions of Jane Eyre are just as breathtaking, fans should “see this to be fully satisfied". (Lucas Hill-Paul)
The film will be on BBC Four next Thursday, July 9, at 23:50 (GMT).
Best Actress - Margot RobbieBest Supporting Actress - Alison Oliver
Sue Ryder is inviting people from across West Yorkshire to take part in the first ever Brontë Pub Walk, a brand‑new event set in the stunning countryside that inspired the world‑famous Brontë sisters.Sponsored by Bulloughs Cleaning Services, the event - taking place on Saturday August 15 at 11am - offers a choice of five or ten‑mile routes, each featuring a series of charming refreshment stops.Walkers will take in Stanbury, Ponden and the outskirts of Oakworth before finishing on the iconic Haworth Main Street. (Hannah Britton)With eight refreshment points on the full route and six on the shorter route, the Brontë Pub Walk is designed to be a relaxed, social day out, perfect for families, groups of friends and workplace teams.
Isn't Iconic probably the most overused and misused word in the English language?
If you’re the type to imagine that literary genius might seep into the stones and the woodwork, England has book-loads of places to go. Jane Austen, the Brontës, Rudyard Kipling, William Wordsworth, Beatrix Potter, Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens ... you can visit the homes of them all. (...)From York, take a spin (or the train) to Harrogate for a touch of 18th century spa town elegance, or to Haworth to see the Parsonage home of the Brontë sisters and the moors backdrop that famously inspired Emily’s Wuthering Heights. (Gemma Tipton & Úna McCaffrey)
Anne Brontë.org celebrates the 200th anniversary of Patrick Brontë's gift of twelve wooden soldiers to Branwell in 1826.
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Young Rep Seniors presentsAdapted by Polly TealeTue 7 Jul–Wed 8 Jul 2026The Studio, 7 Cannon St, Birmingham B2 5EP, United KingdomDirected by Jasmin HyltonMovement Direction by Ana Diego IversenOur Young Rep Seniors take to the stage this July with Polly Teale’s bold and imaginative adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel Jane Eyre. This powerful retelling brings the emotional intensity of Jane’s journey vividly to life, revealing the passions and hidden struggles that shape her story.As Jane grows from a lonely child into a determined young woman, she fights to define her own identity in a world that seeks to confine her. Teale’s innovative approach places Bertha, the ‘woman in the attic’, onstage as a living, breathing embodiment of Jane’s suppressed fears and desires – creating a striking and unforgettable theatrical experience.With rich ensemble storytelling, atmospheric movement and compelling performances, our Young Rep Seniors illuminate a timeless tale of love, resilience and the pursuit of freedom.A fierce, haunting, and deeply human reimagining of a beloved classic.
Tuesday 7th July6:30pm – 8pm (doors open from 6pm)Brontë BirthplaceHeritage researcher and Brontë Birthplace General Manager Anna Gibson explores the uncanny pull of Brontë Country—a landscape shaped as much by longing and myth as by history.Drawing on her experiences living, working, and walking across Brontë Country, she examines how moors, memories, and cherished objects become charged with meaning, and how the Brontës’ presence continues to haunt cultural memory, tourism, and heritage practice today.Anna’s History:After completing her MA in Heritage Studies at the University of Manchester, Anna Gibson joined the Brontë Birthplace on Market Street, Thornton, Bradford, as its first General Manager.The building was acquired through the combined support of more than 700 individual investors, together with funding from Bradford City of Culture 2025, The National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Community Ownership Fund, and the Rural England Prosperity Fund.Now managed by Brontë Birthplace Limited, a Community Benefit Society, the house opened to the public in March 2025.
The contemporary relevance of The Odyssey is a key issue in the film’s potential impact. Mary Beard, professor emerita of classics at Cambridge, says she is hoping for “the Wuthering Heights effect” and suggests there are deeper questions at play behind the surface narrative. “Films always bring people’s attention back to the ancient world and of the whole modern resonance of the classics. What are the big questions raised by the Odyssey and are they still ours? What does it mean to go home? What does war do to those left behind? Where does the boundary between civilisation and barbarity really lie?” (Andrew Pulver)
'Wuthering Heights' (1847)This might seem like it’s establishing a pattern of jumping back 50 years with every new entry, but that’s not the case (promise). Wuthering Heights is a real classic, since it’s not far off being 200 years old, which is wild to think about. It would've been very out there for its time, one would imagine, in terms of how dark and angst-filled it’s willing to get as a story about love… kind of? But not really a love story, being more centered on obsession and a dangerous kind of passion.You get a very strong feeling in your gut from reading Wuthering Heights, and such an experience has proven hard to translate and capture on screen, though that hasn’t stopped various people from trying. With Wuthering Heights, you do just have to read it, or maybe listen to it in full, and then it’s pretty easy to see what all the hype (a hype that has persisted for nearly two centuries) is about. (Jeremy Urquhart)
La produzione Virginy L’Isola Trovata seleziona attori e attrici per le prossime produzioni teatrali, tra cui Cime Tempestose, con Giulio Corso e Federica De Benedittis. Lavoro retribuito. Periodo di lavoro: autunno 2026. (Translation)
Behind The Glass: A Parsonage PodcastSam and Mia are joined by Dr Alessandra Pino, an expert on the intersections of the Gothic, food, and cultural memory. She co-authored The Gothic Cookbook, which digs into food themes and motifs in classic and contemporary novels from the 19th century to the present day.We look at how food is used in the Brontës' Gothic novels Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, and why Margot Robbie's Cathy poked her finger into aspic...Say hi! Let us know if you enjoyed the episode.
From the Yorkshire moors to the Philippines, from Japan to Brazil, by way of Turkey, Mexico, and France, students from Nantes Université (FLCE) invite you to discover the many lives of Emily Brontë’s classic novel. Created by third-year students majoring in English as part of their Cultural Translation course with Laëtitia Saint-Loubert,, this online exhibition explores how Wuthering Heights has travelled across languages, cultures, and media.Through interactive maps and digital timelines, the online exhibition Wuthering Heights in Translation traces the novel’s many journeys through its translations, adaptations, and rewritings across diverse cultural and historical contexts.How do you translate the untranslatable? What happens to Gothic aesthetics, gender relations, or the violence of passion as they cross linguistic, cultural, and medial boundaries? From adapt ations for young readers to ballets inspired by the novel, from book covers that reinvent its visual world to costumes that bring its characters to life, from the translation of proper names to epistolary rewritings and imagined accounts of Heathcliff's enigmatic youth, these projects offer a wealth of new ways to rediscover Wuthering Heights. Others explore the novel's silences, ellipses, and unresolved mysteries, inviting visitors to investigate, play, and reflect on the many transformations of this enduring classic.Collaborative, creative, and digital, this project showcases the vitality of a novel that, for nearly two centuries, has continued to be translated, adapted, reinvented, and reinterpreted around the world.
A Lancashire village has been named among England’s most underrated spots by travel site Love Exploring.Introducing the list, it said: “England is filled with pretty towns and villages, each with its own unique charm – and while it's easy to be drawn to the more well-known destinations, this often means overlooking hidden gems.“To help you discover these lesser-known treasures, we've selected and ranked what, in our opinion, are the most under-the-radar delights from each of England's 39 historic counties.”Wycoller made the list, ranking in 10th place, and it’s the only spot in Lancashire to be included.Love Exploring says the Lancashire village is a “beautiful hamlet” with links to famous author Charlotte Brontë.It adds: “Although very little of it remains, the beautiful hamlet of Wycoller still has much to offer lovers of the English picturesque.“Largely abandoned in the 19th century, when it was due to be flooded to make way for a reservoir, it now consists mostly of atmospheric ruins, including 16th-century Wycoller Hall (pictured) which is thought to be the inspiration for Ferndean Manor in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.“Nearby Wycoller Beck is a pretty woodland stream crossed by seven ancient bridges, one of which (Clam Bridge) is believed to be over 1,000 years old.”Historic UK said: “This sleepy village now forms part of a beautiful country park.“Wycoller is probably most famous for its Bronte connection.”It adds: “The Brontës lived at Haworth, not far from Wycoller, and Charlotte would have passed through here on her way to Gawthorpe Hall when she went to stay with the Kay-Shuttleworths.“Charlotte’s description of Ferndean Manor when approached from the old coach road fits Wycoller Hall perfectly.” (Katie Collier)
So, perhaps we've spent too many times re-watching Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights adaptation, or accidentally become hyperfixated on that free-climbing couple engaged at the top of the Empire State Building, but one thing's conclusive: Having a crush is cool again. And an out-of-reach one? Even better. (Sophie Thompson)
Jane Eyre, elogio de una mujer insignificanteHay libros que tienen algo de patria chica, lugares a los que regresar con cariño, novelas que, pasado el tiempo, te siguen rondando. Y rara vez sucede que su relectura defraude. Puede ser, en el peor de los casos, que, como aquel paisaje o casa de tu infancia, las dimensiones cambien: aquello parecía entonces más grande, ahora se ve diferente, pero sigue siendo entrañable. Sin embargo, cuando una novela realmente te llama, si notas que te pide volver a leerla, lo que a menudo ocurre es que descubras en ella nuevos encantos. Por eso, habitualmente, la relectura de lo que te conmovió y te reclama suele ser tan agradable. (...) (Translation)(Aurora Pimentel)
Finally, an alert for tomorrow, on BBC Two: Jane Eyre 1944, early in the morning: 9:25 (GMT).
Sunday 5th July, 10am – 12pmThe Brontë Birthplace Tearoom, 72-74 Market Street, Thornton BD13 3HFInspired by the Brontës’ Garden: Sweet Peas in Crepe PaperIn this gentle and inspiring workshop, you will create delicate sweet peas from crepe paper, drawing inspiration from the world of the Brontës. Sweet peas were grown in the garden by Emily Brontë, while Charlotte Brontë, though less interested in gardening, captured these fragile flowers in her sketches. In her letters, she even wondered whether Sicilian sweet peas, whose seeds had been given to them by a friend, would survive the unpredictable Yorkshire weather.The art of paper flower making began in ancient China and later spread across the world. In Europe, it became especially popular in past centuries, when fresh flowers were hard to find during winter. In Eastern Europe, paper flowers were used to decorate homes and as festive ornaments.During this mindful workshop, you will learn how to cut, shape and assemble your own sweet pea stem, and leave with a handmade floral piece to take home.All materials are provided. The workshop is suitable for participants of all skill levels and is open to adults and children aged 10+.The workshop is led by Iryna Zhydetska, a Ukrainian paper artist living in the Brontë country. This event is taking place during Thornton Open Gardens weekend, a great chance to create a lasting momento of nature’s beauty.
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Sunday, 5 July 2026 | 16:00 – 17:30Main Hall, St George’s Hall, BD1 1JTExperience the magic of choral music inspired by some of the most powerful voices in literature, performed live by the Leeds Guild of Singers.This specially curated programme brings together musical settings of texts by William Blake, William Shakespeare, Emily Brontë and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, alongside contemporary compositions that reflect the continuing dialogue between poetry and music.Spanning centuries of writing and a wide range of choral styles, the programme explores how composers return to literary texts for inspiration, reinterpretation and emotional depth.Moving between sacred reflection, folklore and lyric poetry, this performance reveals how words written centuries ago continue to resonate through collective voice. Join us for an evening where literature is not only read, but heard in harmony.
"Haworth, forever tied to the Brontë sisters, inspired seminal novels like Jane Eyre and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. The village’s cobbled streets preserve its 19th-century grace while its stone-built houses, often constructed from locally quarried gritstone, give the buildings their distinct earthy hue," writes Love Exploring, which placed Haworth at number five on its list of England's prettiest villages."The neighbouring South Pennine moors – central to Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights – feature wild moors, which in summer are painted purple and green by blooming heather and bilberry."The Brontës are the world's most famous literary family and Haworth Parsonage was their home from 1820 to 1861. Charlotte, Emily and Anne were the authors of some of the best-loved books in the English language. The museum holds the world's largest collection of original Brontë items, including furniture, books, paintings and clothes.Haworth's traffic-free high street is glorious, laid with setts and curling down the hill from the church to central park, with the moors rising behind the sandstone houses on the other side of the Worth ValleyThere's surely no more romantic way to travel the moorland of Brontë Country than in a steam-drawn carriage. The railway has strong cultural links too — the beautiful Oakworth Station appeared in the 1970 children's classic The Railway Children.Haworth is surrounded by the moors, making it a great place for walks, with trails leading through landscapes that inspired some of the greatest works in English literature. The most popular walk is to the Brontë Waterfall, easily reached from Penistone Hill country park. It is mainly flat with fantastic views of the moors.Above Haworth, a little way up the Brontë Way from the waterfall, stands the desolate ruin of an old farmhouse. A plaque was placed here by the Brontë Society in 1964, musing that the moors here may have been in Emily Brontë's mind when she chose a location for Wuthering Heights.Haworth is a hub of unique independent shops, from art to clothes, jewellery to fine gifts, fancy toiletries, books and homewares . Its main street is made up of immaculately kept old-fashioned shop fronts and welcoming shopkeepers. Visit BradfordHaworth also has a great pub scene serving traditional Yorkshire ales. Some of the old pubs like the Black Bull are believed to be haunted by Branwell, the only brother of the Brontë sisters and a family black sheep. (Milo Boyd)
Dying for You” by Charli XCX“Charli XCX knows pop music. As one of its hardest-working pioneers, she can alchemize a hook out of any emotion—a skill she wields to great effect on her companion album for Emerald Fennell’s cinematic adaptation of Wuthering Heights. On ‘Dying for You,’ she clearly understood her assignment, deploying frenzied strings and a bombastic chorus to capture the headlong rush of Cathy and Heathcliff’s onscreen relationship. It also wouldn’t sound out of place on The CW’s Gossip Girl, which makes it a perfect soundtrack song.”—Daniel Taroy, director, social and video
The origin of it all is a question: "You, who are so feminist, how is it that you like Jane Austen or the Brontës?" they told her. "Precisely because of that!" Pujals replies. "There was a need to explain that behind the image of teacups there is a lot of feminist activism". "We have talked about economics, class struggle, the position of women, very serious things and with rigor, but adapted to the millennial and Z generations," adds Freixenet. After all, "Jane Austen invented the "ghosting" and Anne Brontë warned of the red flags of toxic masculinity, as we learned on Wednesday, who cited Rosalía and the Starks.The last chapter is an hour and a half of juice about the life and work of the youngest of the Brontë sisters and her "moralistic and raw" Agnes Grey. For Pujals, it is "a great guide to navigating your thirties; there are phrases that seem to be taken from Substack, and as a good millennial, she clearly has imposter syndrome." Despite the literary quality of the work, however, she is not the most popular author. It turns out that it was the elder sister, Charlotte ("Jane Eyre), the last of the Brontës to die, who blurred Anne's image as simply "pious and bland" and curbed the dissemination of her work, especially that inspired by her alcoholic brother. "She was the sister with more class consciousness, the most radical," they argue. And that is why she is chosen to close the podcast, which ended with the same phrase as Agnes Grey": "I feel like I've talked enough." (Laura Serra)
Date: Saturday 4th July | 11am – 1pmStarting Point: The Bronte Birthplace, 72-74 Market Street, Thornton, BD13 3HF.Join Paul Crossley and the Brontë Birthplace for our Walking Tour of historic Thornton, uncovering the rich cultural, industrial, and architectural heritage of the Brontë children’s birthplace. For many years, Thornton has been the forgotten chapter in the Brontë story but since the grand opening of the Brontë Birthplace, we’re working to shine a light on the fascinating history of this charming and characterful village.Led by local historian and Brontë family expert Paul and a group of local volunteers, this 2-hour tour begins at the Brontë Birthplace and guides you through key sites including the Brontë Bell Chapel ruins, Kipping House, South Square Centre, and the village’s iconic snickets and ginnels.Once overlooked, Thornton’s story is now being brought to life. Step into its vibrant past and discover how it helped shape the Brontës.The tour ends back at the Birthplace, where you’re welcome to relax in the café, browse the gift shop, or book a house tour.
A first edition of Wuthering Heights together with Agnes Grey has sold at Christie’s London for £1,206,500 in its live The Exceptional Sale: Masterworks Across Cultures auction setting a new world auction record by Emily Brontë.The set is one of the finest examples in private hands, and no textually complete copy has appeared at auction in publisher’s cloth since 1908. It survives in its original 1847 publisher’s cloth binding and retains the distinctive textual and printing irregularities of the first edition. It is also the highest price ever achieved for 19th century literature and for any printed book by a woman.Only 250 copies of the first edition of Wuthering Heights were printed and examples in their original full-cloth binding are scarce with only five other examples known (The Blavatnik-Honresfield copy at Brotherton Library, University of Leeds; University of Oxford; British Library; Charlotte Brontë's annotated copy with pages missing sold at Christie’s New York in 2009; and Anne Brontë's annotated copy at Princeton University Library).This copy bound in diagonally ribbed green-grey cloth with floral patterns and arabesques stamped on the cover has been kept in the same historic house library in England since just after its publication in 1847.
‘The Brontës’ by Juliet Barker (1994)A giant, door stopping account of an entire literary family, Barker’s book is a monumental achievement. But it is also riveting and tragic, telling of the passions, failures, and early deaths of the four Brontë siblings, with a specific focus on Emily and Charlotte, the authors of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.
7 "Wuthering Heights" by Kate BushInspired by 'Wuthering Heights' by Emily BrontëEmily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights" follows the turbulent romance between the orphan Heathcliff and the affluent Catherine Earnshaw. Having been adopted by the Earnshaw family, Heathcliff develops a close bond with Catherine — only to have his heart broken when she marries the wealthy Edgar Linton. Years later, Heathcliff returns to society, this time as a man of status and eager to exact revenge.Kate Bush puts the novel to music with "Wuthering Heights," written from Catherine's perspective after her death. From direct references to the Yorkshire moors — "Out on the wily, windy moors" — to self-confessional lyrics reflecting the couple's passionate yet emotionally draining romance, "Wuthering Heights" reflects the same volatile nature of Brontë's seminal work. (Dyah Ayu Larasati)
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by Elizabeth ImlayRiver Light PressISBN: 978-1068467424June 2026Did Charlotte Bronte transform the ancient tale of 'Cupid and Psyche' into one of literature's most enduring novels?In this compelling study, Elizabeth Imlay argues that 'Jane Eyre' is a bold reworking of fairy-tales dating back to the tragic myth, recast through the consciousness of a 19th-century woman seeking passionate love. By tracing Jane's symbolic journey through earth, air, fire, and water-body, spirit, passion, and reason, Imlay reveals how Bronte reshapes the story through a feminist lens, redefining love as a unity of the spiritual and the physical, making 'air' a female element.
About the author
Elizabeth Imlay, MA Oxon, was born into a Freethinking family, her father being a classical scholar and her mother a linguist. She was educated at a school for the daughters of Evangelical missionaries, where she obtained a thorough grounding in the Bible, French and Latin. She read English Language and Literature at Oxford, which at that time demanded a knowledge of French, Latin, Anglo-Saxon and Middle and Modern English. She has worked in publishing and journalism and is now a widow with two grown-up children.
A rare first edition of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, together with Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey, sold earlier this evening in The Exceptional Sale: Masterworks Across Cultures for £1,206,500, setting a new world auction record for Emily Brontë.The result marks the highest price ever achieved at auction for any printed book by a woman, as well as the highest price for any work of 19th-century literature.Regarded as one of the finest surviving examples in private hands, the set remains in its original 1847 publisher’s cloth binding. No other textually complete copy of Wuthering Heights in publisher’s cloth has appeared at auction since 1908.Mark Wiltshire, Specialist, Books & Manuscripts, Christie’s commented, “This is exactly the kind of book collectors dream about but almost never see. A first edition of Wuthering Heights in original cloth is extraordinarily rare. It’s a true survival – and a landmark result for Brontë collecting. It is an honour to have been entrusted with such an exceptional work.”
Sarah West, a volunteer at the site who met the Queen at the time, said: “One of the joys of volunteering at the Brontë Birthplace is meeting fascinating people from all over the world who come to discover where the Brontë story began.“Having the opportunity to meet Her Majesty during her visit was a wonderful experience, and it is fantastic news that she has chosen to become our royal patron.”A group of people stand and watch as the Queen lifts a cloth covering a memorial plaque mounted on an easel in front of the buildingCathy Boyden, the chairman of Brontë Birthplace, said it was an “incredible honour” that the Queen had become its royal patron.She said: “Our first year has been a remarkable journey, made possible by the dedication of volunteers, supporters, members, funders and visitors who believed in the vision of bringing this historic building back to life.“Her Majesty’s patronage is a wonderful endorsement of what has been achieved so far, and gives us great encouragement as we look towards the future.” (Tom McArdle in The Telegraph)
Also on Museums+Heritage.
For 26 years now, local heritage champion Steven Stanworth has been celebrating the area’s Brontë legacy. Since the turn of the millennium, the now 70-year-old has dedicated countless hours of his time to restoring and promoting the Bell Chapel and, with fellow Bradfordian the broadcaster Christa Ackroyd, also created a Brontë exhibition at St James’ Church in the village, which includes the font at which five of the Brontë children were baptised.Formerly involved in both the Brontë Birthplace Trust and Brontë Birthplace Ltd, Stanworth has also helped to shape a lasting celebration of Thornton’s place in the Brontë story at what was once the family home on Market Street.Next month, he’ll give a talk there about his Brontë journey, one of a number of Bradford-born or based speakers taking centre stage at this year’s Bradford Literature Festival to reflect the city’s rich literary and cultural landscape. (...)Stanworth’s involvement with the Brontë story began in 2000, whilst a church warden for Thornton’s St James’ Church, opposite the ruin of the Bell Chapel. After spotting two people tending to graves in what was its rather overgrown graveyard at the time, he got together a working group to tidy the place up and clear it from weeds and brambles.“I didn't realise how big the site was, or what its historical significance was at the time,” he reflects. “But people kept turning up and saying ‘you do realise this is where Patrick Brontë was the minister and five of the six children were christened in this place?’ I didn't at that time but I started to research it...And lo and behold there we are with this unique selling point for Thornton that had been left to go to rack and ruin.“So I really wanted to set about making this place known to people. Brontë fans come from all over the world to Haworth but they very rarely came to Thornton. This seemed wrong, you know, this is the birthplace of the children. These are three of the world's greatest, well-known authors and they should be celebrated in the place where they were born. I thought it's time to put Thornton on the map.”Fast-forward to 2012 and Stanworth took a leading role in The Brontë Birthplace Trust, which was established to raise funds to purchase the house where the family previously lived. “But unfortunately we didn't have enough time to get the money together and buy it,” he recalls.It was a lot of work and Stanworth, who retired as an engineer for Northern Powergrid six years ago, was reluctant at first to get involved in a second opportunity a decade later.But he did in fact become a key part of a group of heritage campaigners who stepped in to buy the Grade II-Listed house and convert it into a visitor attraction. After being lovingly restored to reflect both its historic character and contemporary charm, the building opened to the public as Brontë Birthplace last year and was paid a royal visit by Queen Camilla.More than £650,000 was raised to bring the site back to life, with money from more than 700 individual investors, together with grants from Bradford City of Culture 2025, the Community Ownership Fund, National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Rural England Prosperity Fund, contributing to the purchase. The house now runs as a museum, cafe and education centre with facilities for overnight stays."I think you have to celebrate people where they were born,” reflects Stanworth, who last year released the book Birthplace of Dreams, with photographer Mark Davis, to champion the Brontë heritage in Thornton. “Famous people from your town inspire other people. I want children in particular to be inspired because these girls lived in a humble terrace house and they became world famous and are still famous 200 years later. That’s aspirational.” (Laura Reid)
What would happen if Georgiana, younger sister of Pride and Prejudice’s swoonworthy hero Fitzwilliam Darcy, met Branwell, the troubled only brother of the famous Brontë sisters, shining stars of the 19th century literary firmament? (...)Georgiana finds herself in 1845, only forty-six years in the future, and at gloomy Thorp Green Hall in Yorkshire. It’s the home of the ageing Reverend Robinson and his decades younger wife… and also the place where Branwell and Anne Brontë are employed as the children’s tutor and governess.Mistaken for the eldest and troublesome daughter Lydia’s ‘special companion,’ Georgiana settles in but anticipates she has been drawn to Thorp Green Hall for a reason… to investigate another murder. However, even before she discovers the cook’s father dead on a chopping block, Georgiana finds herself entangled in a web of passion, deception, and danger centred on the eccentric, haunted Branwell.It seems Branwell is engaged in a perilous affair with Mrs Robinson and experiencing a series of sinister omens and terrifying encounters. As Georgiana uncovers the secrets of the house, and learns more about the origins of her time-travelling, she must find the killer and save the Brontë siblings from an evil plot… thus preventing, of course, a most terrible loss to future readers everywhere.Blackwell’s ingenious blend of crime, time travel, all things Austen-esque, and now the Brontë siblings, delivers an atmospheric murder mystery while allowing readers a fresh and fun perspective on much-loved fictional Austen characters, and a glimpse into the real lives of characters like Anne, youngest of the famous sisters, and the tragic Branwell whose turbulent, alcohol-addicted life ended at the early age of 31. (Pam Norfolk)
What makes Jane Eyre still relevant today? That was a question very much on my mind when I was writing my own Jane Eyre reimagining, 4 Janes, which traces the parallel lives of one soul searching for meaning, connection and a place to belong.For a character self-described as small, plain and poor, Jane remains larger than life. Is it because of her independence, her intelligence, her endurance, her moral courage? These are admirable traits, but perhaps what makes Jane most relatable is her desire for more, for a bigger life. Jane wants love — who doesn’t — but she will not compromise herself for it. No wonder readers can’t get enough of Jane Eyre.The roundup below brings together new and earlier reimaginings of Jane’s story. Each uniquely picks up and elaborates upon an important theme in Jane Eyre. Altogether, these retellings are a testament to Jane Eyre as an enduring source of inspiration for both readers and writers.
As previously announced, Charlie Burn (Mean Girls, Savoy Theatre, Les Misérables, UK and Ireland tour) will take on the title role opposite Ashley Gilmour (Miss Saigon, West End/UK and international tour, Evita, Curve) as Rochester.They will be joined by Claire Greenway (Abbot/Grace Poole), Melad Hamidi (St John/Lord Ingram), Connor Wood (John Reed/Vicar), Jonathan Andrew Hume (Brocklehurst/Mason), Izzi Levine (Agnes/Leah/Jane’s Mother/Mary Ingram), Hannah Lindsey (Scatcherd/Bertha Mason), Isabelle Methven (Helen Burns/Bessie), Gemma Page (Reed/Fairfax), Eve Shanu-Wilson (Blanche/Sophie), Poppy Jason (Young Jane/Adele) and Emily-Rose Samuel (Young Jane/Adele).Co-directed by RSC and National Theatre director John Caird (Les Misérables, Spirited Away) and Broadway star Megan McGinnis (Beauty and the Beast, Little Women, Beetlejuice), Caird and Paul Gordon’s musical reimagining of the classic novel will play a strictly limited season at the south London venue from 28 August to 24 October.Commenting on the London premiere of the musical which was first seen in Canada in 1996, Caird said: “I’m so pleased to have the opportunity to explore a new version of Jane Eyre in the beautifully intimate Southwark Playhouse Elephant. It’s always a pleasure to work on this timeless romance but all the more exciting to be collaborating with the brilliant and innovative Megan McGinnis as co-director.”Co-creator Gordon added: “I’m beyond thrilled to finally bring the musical of Jane Eyre to the UK. Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece is not only a landmark portrayal of a strong female protagonist, but a story that sends audiences out of the theatre feeling better about their own lives than when they walked in.” (Angela Thomas)
It seems Emerald Fennell is at it again, riding on the high from her very successful Saltburn, she has reprised her trusty Jacob Elordi to take a stab at adapting Wuthering Heights into a glossy, shock-value-heavy, erotic reimagining.When the trailer for her adaptation dropped, it seemed she had a very different vision to the gothic classic than people were expecting. A vision of a whitewashed Heathcliff with a horrendous Yorkshire accent, a bleach blonde Catherine Earnshaw sticking her fingers into Elordi’s mouth and a Charlie XCX soundtrack thundering across the windy moors.To put it simply, she has taken a classic story rooted in racism, classism and generational trauma and reduced it to a ‘dark erotic romance’ created simply for aesthetics.The most glaring controversy of Fennel’s adaptation is her casting choice, once again she has casted Jacob Elordi as her main lead. Talk about beating a dead horse. This casting choice has not only made the film terribly unexciting and overdone but has also stripped away the core plot of the entire novel. (Kate Koles)
Fennell’s storytelling style and directorial instinct tend towards overstatement and hyperbole which in some sense is appropriate for a story that has such huge emotional highs and lows. Robbie and Elordi are equal to those and portray them well enough, but it is a shame that as empathetic and nuanced actors they are not given much of an opportunity to develop or explore their characters and the dynamic between them beyond the two-dimensional. Where the film scores highly is in the beautiful cinematography from Linus Sandgren and the luminous depiction of the Yorkshire landscape, the soundtrack featuring specially written songs from Charli XCX and the stunning production design and costumes. It is undoubtedly a visual feast. (Yvette Huddlestone)
Haworth - Nestled within West Yorkshire's Worth Valley, Haworth is closely associated with the literary legacy of the Brontë sisters. Their novels remain deeply linked to the surrounding moorland landscapes and the village where much of their lives unfolded.The steep main street climbs through the centre of Haworth, passing stone-built shops, tearooms and historic buildings. The atmosphere feels distinctly different from larger market towns, with much of the village retaining its nineteenth-century appearance.Literary visitors often head to the Brontë Parsonage Museum, housed within the family's former home. Nearby, St Michael and All Angels Church remains an important part of the village's history and contains the Brontë family vault.
The more you beat me, I will fawn on you: Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me, Neglect me, lose me), delivered on all fours with a ribbon-tied ponytail, is an intentional homage to Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights Isabella, but there are certainly likenesses. (Anna Moloney)
Cime Tempestose, analisi critica e socio-psicologica del potente e immortale capolavoro della scrittrice Emily BrontëL’apparente monoliticità dell'opera nasconde in realtà una struttura mineraliforme di vettori culturali e concettuali, che Brontë edifica per manomettere, dall'interno, i canoni estetici e morali della sua epoca. (Massimo Triolo)
Festival Fosquets Lithica 2026, Pedrera de s'HostelGuiem Soldevila – voz, piano, sintetizador y guitarra. Clara Gorrias – voz y flauta. Neus Ferri – voz y guitarra. Lluís Gener – contrabajo. Pau Cardona – violonchelo. Elena Armenteros – arpa. Andreu Marquès – batería y percusión. Pep Eroles – duduk. Gêliah – danza. Carme Cloquells – narración.Brontë es un disco conceptual del músico menorquín Guiem Soldevila que musica trece poemas de las célebres hermanas Charlotte, Anne y Emily Brontë. La obra rinde homenaje a unas autoras que revolucionaron la narrativa del siglo XIX, transformando los límites de la expresión femenina.A través de una instrumentación evocadora con violonchelo, arpa, piano y sintetizador, Soldevila crea una matriz hipnótica que nos traslada a los páramos de Yorkshire. Las voces de Clara Gorrias y Neus Ferri lo acompañan en este recorrido, que en directo se enriquece con la danza de Gêliah y la narración de Carme Cloquells. El resultado es una experiencia escénica única donde la intensidad y la genialidad de las Brontë cobran una nueva dimensión musical.
Queen Camilla has accepted an invitation to become Royal Patron of a museum and educational centre at the location where the Brontë sisters were born.The Queen officially opened The Brontë Birthplace in Thornton, Bradford, in May 2025 after it was opened to the public for the first time in its 200-year history following a fundraising campaign.Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, as well as brother Branwell, were all born in the house on Market Street, now under public ownership, between 1816 and 1820.Cathy Boyden, chair of the Brontë Birthplace, said: "Her Majesty's patronage is a wonderful endorsement of what has been achieved so far and gives us great encouragement as we look to the future."Boyden added: "Our first year has been a remarkable journey, made possible by the dedication of volunteers, supporters, members, funders and visitors who believed in the vision of bringing this historic building back to life."A spokesperson for the museum, which also offers overnight stays, said since it had opened, it had welcomed "thousands of visitors from across the UK and around the world".The siblings later went on to write poetry and novels, with the women originally writing under pen names.Some of their most famous works include Emily's Wuthering Heights, Charlotte's Jane Eyre and Anne's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.The Brontë Parsonage Museum, based in the house where the sisters grew up after the family moved to Haworth in 1821, is also now a museum.According to a spokesperson for the Royal Family, having a Royal Patron "provides vital publicity for the work of these organisations, and allows their enormous achievements and contributions to society to be recognised and promoted".
In 2021, Sotheby’s in London announced the sale of a precious literary manuscript, feared lost for so long that it had acquired near-legendary status. A notebook into which Emily Brontë copied 31 of her poems had remained where it was last heard of in the 1930s, within the private literary collection formed by a 19th-century Lancashire industrialist, William Law of Honresfield House.As well as containing the only-known manuscript versions of some of Brontë’s most famous lyrics, the notebook bears pencilled annotations made by her elder sister (and posthumous editor) Charlotte, who, when later recalling the fiercely independent, contrarian will behind Brontë’s reserved outward manner, claimed that “an interpreter ought always to have stood between her and the world”.Many biographers have welcomed the challenge of standing as “interpreter” to Emily Brontë, but all have had to confront the slight extent of her literary remains. No manuscript or draft material of her only novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), is known to survive. Only a few of her letters and essays have been preserved, while all that is left of her long-running collaboration with her younger sister Anne on the chronicles of their imaginary empire of Gondal are her poems voiced by its impassioned, amoral protagonists.But the American literary scholar Deborah Lutz’s new biography has benefited from the successful fundraising campaign to purchase the “Honresfield Library” for the British nation – including the rediscovered poetry notebook, now preserved in the British Library. Lutz’s insights from accessing this original document, and her expert critical reappraisals of the poems, are among the highlights of this fresh and engaging account of Brontë’s career.The title of This Dark Night, taken from Brontë’s poem opening “The wind I hear it sighing”, announces Lutz’s focus on Brontë as a poet of nocturnal reveries and affinity with nature, who also achieved a sensational innovation in prose with Wuthering Heights, combining a Gothic atmosphere of romance and supernaturalism with grim, confrontational realism in the depiction of madness and violence.While fully honouring Brontë’s genius, Lutz re-examines her domestic and working life with the same human sympathy, and attention to the materiality of 19th-century writing and publication practices, previously displayed in her group biography of the Brontë sisters, The Brontë Cabinet: Three Lives in Nine Objects (2015).All the familiar anecdotes are here, with Brontë again seen abandoning teaching opportunities for managing her clergyman father’s household; studying German while baking bread; cauterising her own wound from a dog bite; rescuing her laudanum-addicted brother Branwell after he set fire to his bed, and stoically enduring, aged 30, her own consumptive death agony in 1848.But the standard narrative gains texture from both first-hand and closely researched engagements with the natural phenomena Brontë experienced, in keeping with Lutz’s quotation of Gertrude Stein’s assertion that “anybody is as their land and air is”.A discussion of Brontë’s poetry and artwork inspired by her captive merlin falcon is enlivened by her father’s description of handling a merlin, jotted into his copy of Thomas Bewick’s A History of British Birds (another Honresfield treasure).The Brontë family vault in St Michael and All Angels, Haworth, with its frequently necessitated reopenings, becomes a powerful motif in Lutz’s explorations of how Brontë’s preoccupations with mortality and decay grew out of her awareness of the Haworth gravediggers’ activities, and of the corpse-preserving properties of the peat bogs on the Yorkshire moors.Lutz’s project of reconstructing Brontë’s lived experience succeeds best when grounded in direct personal observations of place, or in close readings of extant literary manuscripts and other written records. Less convincing are some speculative commentaries on topics including Brontë’s sexuality, and her process of composing Wuthering Heights, where evidence is sometimes lacking even for conjecture (whether by Lutz, or by earlier scholars whose work she cites).At the same time, important contexts with relevance to Brontë’s geographical and social influences are left unexplored. Considerations of what her father’s Irish heritage might have meant to her, or of how the Romantic-period Methodist movement influenced both her parents’ Anglicanism, and her own unorthodox religious and aesthetic sensibilities, are in particular only fleetingly touched upon.In assessing Brontë’s personality, Lutz wisely avoids any anachronistic, pathologising labelling of her characteristics and behaviours. She also holds back, however, from sustained engagement with the personal, post-Romantic philosophy of individualism that drove Brontë’s struggle for authentic self-determination (and which anticipated aspects of 20th-century existentialism).Ultimately, in This Dark Night, Brontë the woman again resists definition, remaining in somewhat indistinct focus amid an accumulation of social-historical detail. Nevertheless, in her vivid communication of her physical encounters with Brontë’s art and craft in the archives, and her sensitive new readings of familiar texts, Lutz achieves a worthy celebration of the unique, uncompromising author who proclaimed “No coward soul is mine”, and became the creator of Heathcliff. (Jenny McAuley)
Christie’s June 30 Exceptional Sale in London offers many fine lots, among them, a bespoke cigar humidor of Cuban amboya gifted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Winston Churchill during the war ($25,000-$40,000); a sabre-toothed tiger skull discovered in a Pleistoscene sinkhole in Florida in 2008 ($1,000,000-$1,500,000); and by no means least, a rare first edition of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, published, fascinatingly, as a three-volume set, the first two of which are devoted to that novel, the third of which is her sister Anne’s novel, Agnes Grey. Pictured top, a portrait of the author of Wuthering Heights at about twenty-five, painted by her brother, Patrick Branwell Brontë.The three volume set carries carry a pre-sale estimate range of £400,000-£600,000 ($529,600-$794,220), but for a host of reasons, as the hammer strikes Christie’s lectern sometime after 4:30 British Summer Time (11:30 Eastern) on June 30, the effervescent speculation in the press is that this particular first edition will run higher than that. Some of the more breathless estimates bandied about in the last weeks range up into seven figures.Whatever number the hammer price attains, the intensity of interest that this lot generates is deep and longstanding. Working from the inside of these volumes out to their remarkably well-preserved cloth bindings – more on which, below – the first, main element of value is that it’s Emily Brontë’s enduring and revolutionary literary masterpiece at issue.The significance of her achievement within English and global literature is difficult to overstate. Of the three sisters, Sister Emily’s exquisitely modern gift to literature and to us – via her characters Catherine and Heathcliff and the Earnshaw and Linton families – was to show that we are all conflicted, riven, subject to great swings of emotion and roundly challenged by simply living out our lives in a largely stormy world, whatever quotient of that may be of our own manufacture.Emily Brontë’s telling of this narrative premise was, also, far ahead of its time, unadorned, stripped bare, always in immediate reach of the brutal facts of her characters’ relations and complications with each other. The very dialogue she gives them cuts to the point of those many conflicts – it’s all fire and motion, there’s virtually no digressive froth to the narrative. Neither Emily Brontë nor her famous characters waste a minute outside their conflicts. They lived them. (Guy Martin)
Heathcliff in ‘Wuthering Heights’ (Robert Fuest, 1970)Wuthering Heights has gone through many cinematic adaptations, none of which have fully captured the essence of the novel, but the 1970 version directed by Robert Fuest is by far the most dull. It’s a major issue when a film based on one of the subversive, heartbreaking psychological romantic dramas of all time is given a G-rating, as Furst’s Wuthering Heights is afraid to have any edge.By sanding off the film from anything deeper, Timothy Dalton’s Heathcliff seems to be just a tragic figure and a failed romantic lead, and not the abusive, cruel character that emerges in the novel. Wuthering Heights is a complex story of race, class, status, and social hierarchies, and to remove the obsessive emotions from Heathcliff’s fixation on Catherine Earnshaw completely misses the point of what Emily Brontë was trying to say with her only novel. (Liam Gaughan)
There is a long tradition of romantic heroes who are difficult, cold, or cruel—Edward Rochester, Heathcliff, half a century of brooding figures on book covers with artfully unbuttoned shirts—and most of them do not change at all. Rochester is reshaped by circumstance; Heathcliff is consumed by it. What separates Darcy from the parade that followed him is that his arc is genuinely moral, not merely emotional. He is not softened by love. He is corrected by it, and he chooses to be.
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by Marian YeeLittle A (Amazon Publishing)ISBN: 978-1662537912June 2026Through time, space, and the transcendence of maternal love, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is reimagined in the parallel lives of one soul searching for meaning, connection, and a place to belong.Jane Eyre is a missionary’s wife.A bookseller in Vietnam.A time traveler.A hero in a modern gothic tale.What if Jane’s story didn’t end with her marriage to Edward Rochester? What if she never married him at all?In one lifetime, Jane travels to India and Burma as Mrs. St. John Rivers. In another, she’s Trang, a young woman selling books in Vietnam, vying for the love of the local priest. Yet another picks up where Brontë left her, now grieving the loss of her child and crossing time and space to find him. And finally, a young Vietnamese-American man searching for himself in Boston, a tutor whose relationship with a veteran feels strangely, achingly familiar…Each thread tells Jane’s story in sweeping, heartbreaking shades of loss, vulnerability, yearning, and the fierce love of mother and child that withstands time and space. While she may long for something more out of a life she didn’t get to choose, she can still decide what to make of it.
Ministers have announced a £47m funding boost for projects aimed at protecting some of peatlands, which are vital for absorbing and storing planet-heating carbon from the atmosphere.The money, announced by the Environment Department (Defra) today, will be divided between three pots, each supporting projects related to either building wetting infrastructure, growing wetland crops and bulrush, or receiving peatland restoration training.Farmers, land managers, drainage boards, water companies and environmental organisations can apply for grants from these different schemes depending on which action suits them best.Peatlands store more than half of the carbon found in England’s land-based ecosystems.This makes them a powerful nature-based solution against climate change, which is mostly driven by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels.However, 80 per cent of England’s peatlands have been degraded after centuries of drainage to make way for farming caused the soils to dry out and the organic matter they contain to decompose, releasing stored carbon into the atmosphere. [...]Defra’s announcement comes amid plans to build a huge wind farm on Walshaw Moor, in Calderdale, the wild landscape that inspired Wuthering Heights.Despite its legal protections, Saudi-backed developers are pushing ahead with plans to build 34 wind turbines – at 200m more than 40m higher than the Blackpool Tower – and a battery energy storage system.MPs from Labour and the Conservatives have objected to the project, highlighting the fact that the scheme would cover more than 2,300 hectares of protected peatland. (Ralph Blackburn)
Wednesday, July 1 • 2 AM - 5 AM CEST / 5pm PST / 8pm ESTJoin us online for a conversation with Deborah Lutz on her new biography of Emily Brontë, This Dark Night. Deborah will be in conversation with Womb House Books founder, Jessica Ferri.Sustaining members of Womb House Books receive free admission to all author events, 15% off online and in shop, and more. Consider becoming a member today.Emily Jane Brontë was just 27 when she started writing the wayward and electric novel Wuthering Heights. Three years later, she was dead. Out of step with her own time and remembered as the strangest of the Brontë sisters, there's much that we don't know about her - most of her papers were destroyed after her death. But as Deborah Lutz explores in this, one of the first biographies of Emily in 20 years, the writing that has survived seethes with storm and strife and with the beautifully desolate landscape of Yorkshire.Drawing on a vast quantity of unexplored archival materials, Deborah reconstructs the texture of Emily Brontë's days, bringing us closer to one of the greatest and fiercest writers we have, by showing us her creative process and her confidence in her strange art.This book has much to reveal to readers of Wuthering Heights, as we accompany Emily around the wild moorlands she loved so much. Also threaded through with the contemporary politics and events of the era (from the early labour movements of the Chartists and reformists, to the slave uprisings in the colonies), and authors and locals that Emily read about or knew (from proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft to the masculine lesbian Anne Lister).Featuring illuminating readings of her poems, This Dark Night takes us inside the world of Emily's irrepressible spirit and wild imagination.
The final twist reveals that the true source of terror is not ghosts, but Marta Carver, a disturbed woman who has been secretly living within the house. This shift from supernatural horror to human menace, similar to renowned gothic stories like Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, makes the story more unsettling and grounded.
Best restorationParnham Park, Dorset(...) Just ten minutes from the Jurassic Coast, the gardens at Parnham are being thoughtfully brought back to life as part of a dramatic restoration of both house and grounds. The house was devastated by a fire several years ago, lending the estate a romantic, distinctly Jane Eyre feel as it slowly returns to glory. (Helen Daly)
8. A young woman falls for the wealthy, mysterious man whose dark secrets threaten their future together. (Joanne Finney)
Don’t expect high fidelity to Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel about lovers brooding on the 19th-century English moors. Only the novel’s first half is covered here with Margot Robbie as the ill-fated Cathy and Jacob Elordi as her paramour Heathcliff. The bold costumes and sets make up for storytelling liberties. Streaming now, HBO Max (Michael Fell)
Bayern 2 Salon – Buchgefühl: Emily Brontë, Sturmhöhe (Saturday 27 June 2026, 14:05–15:00 CET; also available as podcast via ARD Sounds). In this episode of Bayern 2's literary reading-and-conversation format, host Judith Heitkamp talks with prize-winning Dutch author Anjet Daanje — whose novel Das Lied von Storch und Dromedar (recently longlisted for the International Booker Prize) imagines the afterlife of Emily Brontë through literature — about why Wuthering Heights has fascinated her since childhood. Daanje argues that film adaptations almost always cover only the first half of the novel, losing something essential: Brontë's portrait of how the next generation survives after the parental one has burned itself out. She also reflects on Brontë's elusiveness as a biographical subject ("you learn more about the biographers than about Emily Brontë herself"). Readings are performed by Irina Wanka, the German voice of Sophie Marceau. In German.
Edited by Elizabeth DearnleyBritish Library PublishingBritish Library Tales of the WeirdISBN: 9780712369459June 2026Authors: Emily Brontë, Andrew Michael Hurley, Sylvia Plath, Charlotte Brontë, Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu, Ted Hughes, Arthur Machen, Sabine Baring-Gould, Gertrude Atherton, L.T.C. Rolt, E. F. Benson, Phyllis Bentley, Lettice Galbraith, Michael Temple, F. W. Moorman.The stars gave light enough for me to discern the figure as that of a man, but I could scarcely discover more. “Dark night, this,” I said. “Darker below,” he muttered, as though to himself; “darker, darker, darker.”Yorkshire: a land entwined with a distinctive tradition of uncanny literature and folklore, home to twilit towns thronging with restless ghosts, woods alive with the whispers of fairies and vast moorlands stalked by boggarts and barghests after dark.Exploring Yorkshire’s position as a heartland of British supernatural fiction, the stories and poems gathered here trace its weird literary heritage from medieval tales of shapeshifting spirits to the Gothic worlds of the Brontë sisters, and from wartime hauntings to modern folk horror. Including local legends from rare sources and unsettling stories from Arthur Machen, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Andrew Michael Hurley and many more, this collection offers glimpses of a stranger England hidden among the shadows of the dales.
Through time, space, and the transcendence of maternal love, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is reimagined in the parallel lives of one soul searching for meaning, connection, and a place to belong.Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from 4 Janes by Marian Yee, which releases on June 30th 2026.Jane Eyre is a missionary’s wife.A bookseller in Vietnam.A time traveler.A hero in a modern gothic tale.What if Jane’s story didn’t end with her marriage to Edward Rochester? What if she never married him at all?In one lifetime, Jane travels to India and Burma as Mrs. St. John Rivers. In another, she’s Trang, a young woman selling books in Vietnam, vying for the love of the local priest. Yet another picks up where Brontë left her, now grieving the loss of her child and crossing time and space to find him. And finally, a young Vietnamese-American man searching for himself in Boston, a tutor whose relationship with a veteran feels strangely, achingly familiar…Each thread tells Jane’s story in sweeping, heartbreaking shades of loss, vulnerability, yearning, and the fierce love of mother and child that withstands time and space. While she may long for something more out of a life she didn’t get to choose, she can still decide what to make of it. (Elise Dumpleton)Chapter OneMarseilles, France, 1851Jane Eyre is dead.The plain gold band on my finger is the sign of her demise.I am Jane Rivers now. Or, more accurately, Mrs. St. John Rivers.Mrs. St. John Rivers. I try on the name like a pair of new calfskin gloves. The syllables glide along my tongue smoothly enough once I get over the little bump at the beginning. Then I study the small hands lying calmly in my lap. They are encased in soft, pale-yellow leather, and like my new name, they seem to belong to somebody else.I have been a missionary’s wife for barely a week.I wait at one of the fashionable coffeehouses on La Canebière, surrounded by wonders: gilding, mirrors, paintings, tapestries, and a large revolving clock in the center that gives the time on three continents. They bring together the charms of this port city as if in miniature. I look about, my senses heightened: The drink served here is not to my liking, but I savor its rich, smoky aroma.For these moments at least, I sit alone. St. John is at the purser’s office, seeing to our cabins and passage. We arrived at this bustling French port last night, and were deposited, along with the English mail that had departed on the London train with us, in a damp heap along the quay. This followed a Channel crossing that was in itself a trial. I spent most of that time huffing short, shallow breaths and moaning miserably into my handkerchief while my stomach roiled. St. John held my hand dutifully while I battled nausea, but I could not entirely dismiss a sense that his patience was forced, that he hid his disapprobation at finding me such a poor traveler before we had even ventured beyond Europe.No matter. Now all is near ready. We have said our goodbyes. I wait with our few belongings, only the baggage we will need on the crossing, hardly enough for a journey of nearly two months. Fortunately, our present needs are few, and the rest of our trunks will be sent along. In our haste to depart we left them to Diana and Mary—his sisters, my cousins—to assemble, to cord, to nail the cards that would direct them to our final destination. They will chase us from port to port until we are reunited—only six weeks from now!—in India. At that point, we will open them with a sense of wonder that such luxuries and extravagances exist; we will puzzle what to do with calfskin gloves and fur muffs in the blazing heat of a sun-drowned continent.As I wait, I return to the book I laid aside and open it to the point where a folded sheet of paper divides the unread pages from the finished ones. The paper is nothing more, or less, than the very letter that started me off on this journey, having arrived for Mary two months ago from a friend in ⸺shire. As Mary shared its contents with Diana and me, one set of ears heard, with distant concern and casual curiosity, the misfortune of others that did not touch upon itself, while another set heard the end of the world.It was news of a devastating fire at Thornfield: The entire estate had been burned to the ground, and no one there had survived the destruction. No one. God forgive me, there was only one who mattered in that moment, only one whose death meant my own. I could barely bring myself to whisper his name. Edward. I recall Mary’s voice droning on, then pausing; Diana’s sharp oh dear. Was it for the news or at my fainting dead away? I was told afterward that I had collapsed in a wordless heap.I have no recollection of those hours, those days (five, they told me) immediately following, when I drifted in a haze of blankness. Feeling fled me; I was disembodied, perceiving only strange scraps. A slight stirring in the current of air let into the sickroom. Fragments of hushed speech floating in and out of range. Gradually, shadowy forms constellated into people coming in and going out, though one body remained the longest, hovering near my orbit like a constant moon. As the boundaries of my vision drew in, the blurred edges slowly sharpened into clear features: twin orbs of blue that floated, then settled upon a finely boned visage.“Jane.” The eyes probed my face. “You know me.”“Yes, St. John.”He heaved a sigh. “You have been gone a long time.”“I have been right here,” I said, bewildered. “In this bed. I have not moved.” Indeed, I felt stiff all over, for I had been practicing the pose of a corpse.“Stay,” he gently implored.“I am right here,” I repeated.“Nay, you were drifting again, Jane. To that place you have been these past five days, five years, it seemed. Sorrow’s shores. Come back to the living, Jane.”And then I remembered.
As a university literature professor, I often recommend Charlotte Brontë’s *Jane Eyre* to students who find classics daunting. It is relatively accessible among so-called classics and, above all, unexpectedly entertaining. However, Hélène, the protagonist of Fanny Britt’s graphic novel *Jane, the Fox, and Me* (illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault, 2013), reads *Jane Eyre* for a different reason.Bullied at school, Hélène pulls out her book on the bus. *Jane Eyre* is her sole escape. At an age when emotions run raw, the wounds inflicted by classmates are sharp enough to drain the color from a teenager’s world—gray corridors, ashen faces. Arsenault renders Hélène’s world in drab black and white, while the scenes Hélène imagines from *Jane Eyre* bloom in cheerful pastel watercolors. Jane, an orphan, poor, and far from conventionally beautiful, never relinquishes her dignity. But Hélène is not Jane.The girl confesses to the reader: “I am a sausage. Jane Eyre may be an orphan, ugly, abused, lonely, and abandoned, but she was never a sausage. Never was, never will be—a fat sausage.” The pair of sausages drawn on facing book covers, though initially comical, evoke a grotesque imagery reminiscent of Kafka. This is, of course, a visual metaphor for Hélène’s alienation.The climax arrives when Hélène, at a nature camp, is approached by a fox. Its gaze is gentle. Untamed yet unafraid to meet her eyes, the beautiful creature seems to sense her loneliness without a word. Though the fox vanishes like a mirage, this brief encounter grants Hélène a crucial realization. As she acts on it, her world finally blossoms like spring flowers—and swiftly fills with vibrant hues. What exactly Hélène realizes is for readers to discover within the pages. (Shin Seung-han)
The wild Yorkshire moors of northern England feature prominently in the 19th-century novels “Wuthering Heights” and “Jane Eyre,” by Emily and Charlotte Brontë. The sisters spent most of their lives in the village of Haworth, where you can visit the Brontë Parsonage Museum, which includes their manuscripts and writing desks. To see the landscape that inspired their work, you can take a five-mile roundtrip across Haworth Moor to the Brontë Waterfall. (Jane Green)
The Brontë Sisters UK has a new full-length video on the Brontë diary papers — the scattered journal fragments left by Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, covering everyday life at Haworth from the 1830s through the 1840s.
